How To Install A Toolbox In A Truck Bed

If you regularly utilize a truck for work, play, or the serious business of line-fishing, yous have all kinds of tools and equipment to take with you. Carrying many tools around can create issues, including damage to your truck bed and the tools themselves. (Not to mention those back muscles!)

Some tools and specialty equipment cost a whole lot, and then you want to keep them in good shape. A loftier-quality tool box stores and organizes your tools and protects them from harsh weather condition and low-life thieves who want what y'all have.

Hither's the low-down on all things tool box. In this article, we're going to discuss:

Why Every Truck Owner Needs a Truck Tool Box

There are then many benefits to having a good, sturdy tool box installed in your pickup. Let's take a await at some of the primal reasons to invest in one, shall nosotros?

Security from theft. A good tool box is lockable and nearly impossible to pry open. A difficult-as-nails tool box will give sticky-fingered crooks a really bad day.

Protect your equipment and tools from the elements. Ensure your equipment and tools are kept condom, dry, and free from rust and damaging elements. Mother Nature's out to become your tools, son. Fourth dimension to store them abroad in a tool box so your equipment will last longer.

Save money and fourth dimension. Not having to supersede your tools regularly is an obvious money saver. Saving time searching for tools and smaller items means y'all're going to get the chore done quicker (and time is coin, baby). For many trades, this tin can mean some other appointment (or perhaps even a few more) can be taken in a day. Or it might mean yous tin get home and kick back a petty sooner. Either fashion, time-saving benefits anybody!

System and efficiency. Organization increases efficiency, and that's like adding extra time to your day. Not only can you potentially hold more tools, but everything is easier to get to. When you know where every tool is, and you lot tin get straight to it without wasting time hunting through a messy jumble of randomness.

Sustainable, long-term solutions. Ideally, a expert tool box will last for years—maybe even longer than the tools y'all're carrying. The more rugged and sturdy the construction, the amend.

How to Choose the Right Tool Box For You lot

Tool boxes come up in a variety of materials and sizes. The cost mostly reflects the tool box's overall quality (in this world, you get what you pay for). Consider exactly what you'll be storing and transporting in your tool box. This will help yous to choose the right ane for your needs.

So, what exactly do y'all need? Something just to hold your tools in place, or something more high-quality and heavy-duty for hardcore usage and tool protection? Let's look at a quick rundown of the pros and cons of dissimilar materials so you can get a better idea:

Plastic pros: Lightweight and won't rust.
Plastic cons: Can scissure or suspension easily, lower content capacity.

Stainless steel pros: Tough and rigid.
Stainless steel cons: Expensive and susceptible to rust and weather damage.

Steel pros: Pulverisation-glaze finish and non-corrosive.
Steel cons: Heavier than your female parent-in-law.

Aluminum pros: Sturdy and strong, not-slip and not-corrosive, and lightweight.
Aluminum cons: Tin be expensive, can perforate or dent.

How to Install a Regular Ol' Truck Tool Box

Once you've done your research and found the correct tool box for your needs, yous'll desire to brand certain information technology's properly installed. Y'all could pay someone to install it, but tool box installation is non complicated, and… you're a truck possessor who needs a tool box. We're gonna assume you're at least a lilliputian handy.

What You'll Demand

The exact tools you need depend on the type of tool box y'all have. Some might require you lot to drill holes. Near tool boxes will require at least the beneath things, though, then become this stuff together earlier you lot begin.

More than 1/4 of a standard human being brain. Installing a truck tool box is not rocket scientific discipline, just you can't go in in that location with nothing.
Work gloves.
Measuring tape.
Foam padding or rubber padding materials.
Strong pair of scissors or a arts and crafts knife.
Screwdriver or drill.
Hardware (your bolts, nuts, and screws).
Your new tool box (seems like a no-brainer, only see to a higher place).
A friend to requite you a helping manus.
A cold one to bask one time you're finished.

Some new tool boxes come up with everything you need for installation. If not, yous'll need to measure information technology and make sure you're getting the right sized foam padding and any nuts, bolts, or screws necessary. Most tool boxes use J-bolts for secure installation.

The Steps

It'south so easy that y'all should be a bit embarrassed fifty-fifty reading this article. But, since you're here, there are only a few unproblematic steps involved. It shouldn't take you long to get your new tool box installed and fix for activity.

Step 1: Decide where y'all're going to identify your tool box. (A standard crossover box will become toward the front of your truck bed cargo bay.) Be conscientious during this step. Y'all want to balance having as much space in your truck bed behind the tool box and getting the tool box likewise close to the cap and not being able to open up information technology all the way or busting your rear camera.
Step 2: Measure the cream padding and put information technology in place. You tin skip this footstep if you lot've got a truck bed liner.
Step 3: Position your tool box. Make sure y'all can fully open your tool box hat. If the lid touches the truck cab when open up or the box obstructs the driver's view or camera, you need to adjust the box position again. Some tool boxes need a few inches for clearance.
Stride 4: If your truck doesn't accept pre-drilled holes in the bed rails, you'll need to measure out and drill holes on both sides. If your truck does have existing holes, you tin skip directly to the next stride.
Stride 5: Identify the rubber J-bolt plugs into the 4 holes.
Step 6: Insert the J-hook into the hole from under the bed rail. Push the threaded role through the rubber plug.
Stride seven: Apply a washer and tighten. Secure away!

Repeat Steps half-dozen and 7 with all four of the J-hooks and J-bolts and you lot're done!

Simple, right? Yous only need a buddy on the other side to elevator information technology, and so move information technology around and line up the holes.

The Best Tool Box for Every Truck Owner

Finding a tool box for your pickup truck that ticks all the boxes on your wishlist can prove to be hard and expensive. That'southward exactly why we made a list of the problems most truck tool boxes have and engineered a product that solves them.

Nosotros know what y'all demand because we've been there. Hell, we LIVE in our trucks. Here'due south the low-down..and why we think it's the all-time matter since beer coozies were invented.

The New DECKED Tool Box

- Construction: The new DECKED Tool Box is engineered out of some serious sturdy stuff. Injection-molded, high-impact polymer resin not but looks good, but it likewise won't dent or cleft , no thing what you lot throw at it.
- Weatherproof: Considering it is molded (not welded), you lot get a seamless lid and tub. Its moisture-repelling, watertight architecture seals tightly when airtight thanks to an EPDM lid gasket aqueduct. That ways your tools are kept os freakin' dry and protected from whatever the weather throws at it , too! (Did nosotros mention that the anti-corrosion treated steel and aluminum hardware ensures this tool box will terminal for years?)
- Security: It's also one of the most secure tool boxes available in today's market. The steel armored locking mechanism is like shooting fish in a barrel to work with a key but is like Fort Knox without i.
- Accessibility: Grabbing your tools from the side of your truck is as easy as Sunday morning time. Only employ the integrated ladder , which folds inside the box like a telescope when not in employ. Information technology does this without blocking access to the tool box contents.
- The Lid: The lid is reinforced with steel, yet it opens and closes effortlessly, thanks to torsion springs. These fail less than the gas struts used in other loftier-end tool boxes. No slamming your fingers in this ane!
- Low Profile: Information technology doesn't block your rear window. Whatever type of truck you have, you can maintain your truck's low profile and fifty-fifty use it with a tonneau cover.
- DECKED D-Box: Making the Tool Box even easier to proceed organized, the cost includes a full-sized, blueish DECKED D-Box that fits snugly within the tool box.

Dimensions: 76″ L x 22″ W 10 twenty.53″ H (Top above bed rail: 5.78″)

Capacity: 9.82 ft³; 73.four Gallons

Weight: With the ladder, the Tool Box comes in at 113.5 lbs. Without the ladder, information technology's 101 lbs.

Toll: You can get yourself a DECKED Tool Box for $675 without the ladder or $825 with the ladder.
Warranty: It comes with a limited lifetime warranty, and then in the unlikely effect of a manufacturing error, DECKED has you fully covered.

Compatibility: You lot're wondering whether the DECKED Tool Box works with the DECKED Drawer System, right? That depends on your truck and on when you bought your DECKED Drawers. The DECKED Drawer Organization is not compatible with the DECKED Tool Box for short beds: 5'vi″ or standard 6'vi″ bed length trucks… but information technology IS uniform with select viii-foot Drawer Systems.

How to Install the DECKED Tool Box

If you lot idea the decision to get a DECKED Tool Box was easy, wait until yous hear how like shooting fish in a barrel information technology is to install.

What You'll Demand

three/8" socket
Ratchet
Rubber pads

The Steps

Step 1: Place prophylactic pads on bed rails (1 per side).
Step 2: Advisedly place the Tool Box into place on top of rubber pads.
Step iii: Open Tool Box lid to ensure it doesn't striking the back of the cab.
- Warning: Shift the Tool Box every bit needed for necessary cab clearance.
Footstep 4: Install two bed track clamps on each side of the Tool Box.
- Secure clamps with bolts, washers, and nuts.
- Tighten all four bolts and test the tightness.

Using the Ladder

Step ane: Slide it out until you hear the starting time "click."
Pace 2: Continue sliding/extend the ladder until you hear the second "click."
Pace 3: Grab handle on Tool Box for support and ground the ladder.
- Circumspection: Don't climb into the truck'southward bed from the ladder. It could swing into the truck and cause outside damage (the ladder is designed for the user to achieve over the sides).

It'southward that uncomplicated to outfit your truck with a proficient-looking, waterproof, organized tool box that's prophylactic for your valuable tools. So, what're you waiting for? The Tool Box of your dreams has arrived, ladies and gents!

You know what to do. Let's get to work.